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Oxford Univ crash course for 2 Indian teaching Olympiad winners

Two teachers from India have won themselves a two-week classroom course at the University of Oxford by topping a teaching professionals' Olympiad.

Nandini Shah, a teacher at the Oberoi International School in Mumbai and Manoj Pillai, who teaches in Kochi, have been named winners of the CENTA Teaching Professionals' Olympiad (TPO). They will now undergo the'Oxford English Language Teachers' Academy Masterclass' at one of the university's oldest colleges Worcester.

"The programme provides a professional development experience and aims at helping the participants refresh and revitalise their teaching strategies and techniques, as also learn the integration of technology in teaching methodology and enhance language skills," an Oxford University Press (OUP) India statement said.

The 3rd to 6th rank holders in the English challenger track will undergo the Oxford Teachers' Academy online training program delivered in partnership with the University of Oxford in India; and rank holders 7th to 16th will undergo OUP's Online Teacher Training course, also in India. Shah said recognising teachers in this way is the need of the hour in a world where the teaching profession tends to be largely under-appreciated. "The two-week workshop is also very apt for my teaching practice as it promises to teach skills any innovative and active teacher would value learning, such as integrating technology into the English class, incorporating grammar and vocabulary learning in an engaging manner, and teaching 21st century skills amongst others," she said.

According to Sivaramakrishnan V, Managing Director of OUP India, "OUP remains totally committed to the development of teachers given our fundamental belief that the teacher is the principal pivot in the teaching-learning eco-system."

He also said that OUP's pedagogically advanced teacher training programmes have "strong participation from teachers across the country resulting in us training nearly 100,000 teachers, year-on-year". Ramya Venkataraman, founder and CEO of Centre for Teacher Accreditation (CENTA) said that the aim is to identify and reward outstanding teachers.